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Would you like to work for a business owner who is a millionaire next door type? If so, pretend for a few minutes that you are one. As a millionaire, you probably spend at lot of time time reading the trade/professional journals of your industry and the industries you service. As a successful business owner, the classified “businesses for sale” section is especially interesting to you because you want to know who is selling what and for how much.

Also, an increasing number of wealthy business owners are confronted with the fact that their children do not have the interest or the discipline to take over the “family” business.

Aware of these facts, a young business school graduate who sought employment and an eventual equity interest in an entrepreneur’s business wrote a highly innovative classified advertisement. He placed this ad adjacent to the “business for sale” sections of several trade journals:

Disappointed in your children? They have no interest in managing the business. You don’t have to sell your business, adopt me. Your new son will run the business! Call Mark. [Marketing to the Affluent]

Where did Mark go to find the trade journals in which he placed his advertisements? “. . .made friends with a reference librarian in the business school library.” Thousands of young people hunt for jobs with conventional and unimaginative weapons, but not Mark. He [did] succeed in finding an entry level position with a firm whose rapid success was cited in a trade journal.

This is a great idea. When I graduated 10 years ago I networked through the Small Business Development Center at my University. I was the first employee a small start up company. It didn’t pay well but the experience helped me start my own business. It was the best move I made.